Commentary

Not everyone agrees that your or my collective carbon footprint amounts to a hill of beans. Others shiver at the thought of another law or more government. And those who profit greatly from fossil fuels are the first to challenge any notion of the need to reduce one’s carbon footprint.

When I try to remember the best Christmas ever, it’s impossible. It’s not that I never had a best Christmas ever. But no single memory explodes into smiling snowflakes and flashing Christmas tree lights. The same goes with the worst Christmas ever. They exist somewhere in my memory like empty beer cans tossed under a sparcely decorated dead Christmas tree. Selective memories fade in time and prove that each moment is temporary. Some moments are like the whiff of a freshly peeled orange […]

Yes, I am cherry picking words from the recently published Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Francis. I can’t slow dance with every statement in the document–I guess I’m too independent. Yet, when it comes to the well-being of humanity, I can not quit sloshing about in my happy dance upon hearing a person of immense influence speak against the loud vocalizations of what I must term as the politically far right. Years back, when I first heard the bellowing of the likes of Limbaugh, […]

A landmark birthday nears and I’m not as ambivalent as with other landmark birthdays: 40, 50, and 60. Reflection is like a mirror that won’t break and leave my presence. Some memories delight me and others can bring the flow of tears. I see the young faces of those who died in their youth. They remain young forever. No gray hair. No limps. No lumps. Bright eyes. Smooth skin. Abundant dreams–albeit unfulfilled. When a mirror captures me, I spin away so as […]

Passionate and powerful writers lay their words on cyber paper about the state of racism in America today. Some scribe and speak (lightly veiled) disgust towards the Civil Rights Act and the fact that America’s president is partially black—of certain African descent, no less. Others, and possibly the majority–based on the last presidential election—are color blind. Barack Obama’s karma led him to rekindle and review the state of racism in America. What I’ve read and heard during this 50th anniversary of the […]

Also seen in SLO New Times & Santa Maria Sun On an August afternoon 36 years ago, my world flipped upside down. I was 27 years old, mother to a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old. My college career was on hold while my husband considered a graduate degree. But that wasn’t going to happen because on this one August day a deadly accident terminated our dreams. This accident killed my husband and I stood in the desert wind unsure how I would move forward […]

It’s not that I can’t be stubborn and hot-headed. I am far from human perfection. In my defense, I’ve developed my enabling spirit into a negotiating spirit. There are always two-sides to every whole. The question remains, however, what if one of those sides is so badly injured and toxic that a cure is unlikely—at least in the present?

At times I sense a deliberate effort by others to force us into a funk that’s frothed with anger and fear. Bad vibes. Pile on our daily happyius interfereus, like the episode I recently experienced with spouse’s health, and it feels like a dunking in putrid mud. If I’m not happy, my family is not happy. If my daughter is not happy, her family is not happy. Frowns spread like yawns in a crowded room. Frowns welcome anger and fear faster than […]

As if Al Gore just farted in public, the blogosphere gassed-up a regressive debate about NOAA’s reported Co2 397.35 ppm reading at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. To me, this denial is akin to my personal denial of why I can no longer squeeze into a size 8 jean